Flashback: transparent phones were as cool as they were useless

10 March 2024
While you struggle to read a text on your overly expensive transparent phone, you start to think that "form over function" isn't worth it.

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Fire Smeller, 10 Mar 2024There's no practical or logical need or reason for suc... moreHow about cars? There can be AR-HUD and navigation etc displayed on front glass of a car?

    If you ask me, transparent screens only make much sense on AR glasses.

      The most useful and perfect transparent phone - AR phone.

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        • Anonymous
        • yN7
        • 11 Mar 2024

        I, 10 Mar 2024Gsmarena data Miss the lenovo transparent phone.. its color... moreI second that. I can certify that the Lenovo S800 had a color display. I bought one via Alibaba at that I time.

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          • Azie
          • AZY
          • 11 Mar 2024

          Ottonis, 10 Mar 2024Probably one of the first transparent virtual "screens... moreMinority report vertical screens and interacting them by keeping your hand in the air is totally inpractical and tiresome.
          Though, having a screen that is transparent from the back but nontransparent from front sounds intriguing.

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            • Anonymous
            • 0cB
            • 11 Mar 2024

            Never had any transparent product. But they are cool indeed. For me the best is black or dark grey.

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              • Anonymous
              • rJq
              • 11 Mar 2024

              Phones should be transparent not visually but in terms of privacy and security

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                • Maria
                • sEB
                • 11 Mar 2024

                Somehow I miss the time when phones are lot different from others. It is not like current (smart)phones that only the camera island different from others.

                  I can see through the failure of those devices.

                    this is just as cool if only used for sci-fi movie props.

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                      • S
                      • xjH
                      • 11 Mar 2024

                      I wish if i could be transparent.
                      Then i could do anything, lol.

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                        • Anonymous
                        • I@H
                        • 11 Mar 2024

                        for novelty i considered getting pureness...
                        aesthetically pleasing...
                        quite expensive, though even for some refurbished units from china...
                        and when lenovo released one, on their first ever batch of smartphones, i was already not into it...
                        the innovation is good... might find its way for practically, maybe...
                        or maybe, a good marketing like the rounded displays and display cutouts... i see no practical benefit, but somehow most people love them for aesthetics...

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                          • Gaia
                          • Y7W
                          • 10 Mar 2024

                          It's just like old concept cars that had features that were useless even for today, but were made just to show what manufacturers are capable of.

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                            • u7V
                            • 10 Mar 2024

                            Gsmarena data Miss the lenovo transparent phone.. its color transparent than Sony Xperia just black ink..
                            Too bad gsmarena data always lots miss about all Phone around the world

                              There's no practical or logical need or reason for such,it's just movie concepts we want to make a reality or prove of reality.There is no need of such technology.Theyre only applicable in glasses.

                                Probably one of the first transparent virtual "screens" were the holographic messages in the early Star Wars movies in the late 1970s/early 1980s.
                                Then came "Minority Report" starring Tom Cruise, where his character used to work before huge transparent glass screens.
                                The beauty and aesthetics of these large transparent screens was that they assembled a large part of a conference room where many people could collaboratively work together and because these screens were transparent, they were inside the room without dividing it and without separating the people inside the room. It was like having a cinema screen that could be watched from every angle in the room and where all people in the room could still look into each other's eyes - all at the same time.

                                So yes, although "sci-fi", that was a prime example of rational use case of transparent screens.

                                Laptops or cellphones do not belong to this category of use cases so they don't benefit from transparent structures except for looking "futuristic".

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                                  • Anonymous
                                  • fCC
                                  • 10 Mar 2024

                                  Darth Caesium, 10 Mar 2024You do realise that you can make transparent batteries?You do realise that a smartphone is not made of just batteries ? 🤡 even if, somehow, the transparent battery does exist

                                    I remember that in the movie Steel Giants a transparent Nokia appeared, it was more of a transparent Phablet and the Symbian apps came out! We are talking about a movie from more than a decade ago and that concept was already circulating... Also in Matrix 2 transparent monitors appear

                                      Anonymous, 10 Mar 2024That transparent Iron Man smartphone is so mindless and sil... moreYou do realise that you can make transparent batteries?

                                        Anonymous, 10 Mar 2024That transparent Iron Man smartphone is so mindless and sil... moreIt could be realised with low-power electronics, just the part shown as in the movie.